Disc Dem

Saturday, 17 June 2017

The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Ugly

The fires in Knysna and its
surrounds brought out the very best and very worst in South African society. On
the really good side, volunteer fire fighters arrived from all over the country,
and watching Working on Fire teams singing and dancing in a car park before
heading off to risk their lives in the smoke and flames brought a lump to the
throat. Local people unaffected by the fires opened their hearts and homes to
those displaced, and the humanitarian aid response was, and continues to be
outstanding.

The countrywide outpouring of
sympathy and support across all race groups was heartening to see, with one
particular twitter message summing it up beautifully in only 140 characters

Then there were the downright
ugly sentiments of mean-spirited, sick-minded people who had nothing better to
do during this disaster than to wish others harm. Intent on spewing their glee
onto the internet they couldn’t be bothered to find out that the largest
population group at risk was, in fact, Black.

What we can no longer ignore, though,
is that the racial divide which should have been closed or at least
significantly narrowed after 23 years of “democracy”, is now widening. It has taken the common cause of the Garden
Route tragedy to bring people closer together again, at least temporarily. How
long this will last once the embers have cooled, and self-serving politicians
have had their “Kodak Moments” in Knysna prior to returning to their divisive
rhetoric, can probably be measured in microseconds, but South Africans in
general have reacted admirably, and in unity, to a disaster in which people have
been left with nothing.

Yet what concern do we show for
those who are unaffected by fire or natural disaster and who have nothing to
begin with? Is it their fault that they are unemployable because of our
seriously defective basic education system? Is it their fault that restrictive
labour laws deter employment rather than encourage it? Is it their fault that
trade unions serve to protect the already employed, rather than encouraging
additional employment? I can already
hear “Yes, it is their own fault for voting ANC”, but seriously! What little
they may have in terms of social grants, RDP housing and municipal indigent
support stems from ANC policies, so they can hardly be blamed for refusing to
bite the hand that feeds them. It is also one of many reasons why they may choose
not to vote at all, rather than vote for another party against the ANC.

The idiom common cause also takes on new significance when looked at in terms
of a natural disaster of fire versus the man-made disaster of poverty. When a
catastrophe such as the Garden Route fires encompasses all of us we react as a
unified society, but when it comes to everyday grinding poverty it’s no longer our problem, it’s their problem whoever they might
be. So why can we not see all the
problems of South Africa as our common cause?

I believe it is because to one
extent or another we are still living intellectually, culturally and
emotionally as independent societies within our previous racial
classifications. It remains a case of us
and them, which is dry kindling to
politicians prepared to fan the flames of division regardless of the cost. South African politics, from the days of recently
much debated Colonialism, through the apartheid euphemism of “Separate
Development”, to the multiple B’s and E’s of ANC policies, has always been
about division and not unity. Politicians of average intellect survive on social
division, and political leaders who have no vision beyond their quest for
power, thrive on it.

It takes a glance at the two main
political parties, where ANC membership will not rid itself of its compromised
leader, and DA leadership compromised with a recalcitrant member, to realise
how perverse the party system has become. The playground antics of South
African politicians are a case of Forget
about the ball, let’s get on with the game, where “the ball” is the people
and “the game” is the acquisition of power. Factionalism is the order of the
day, with politicians squabbling internally to capture power over their party, in
the hope it will carry them to the ultimate prize of capturing the country. Take
a moment to think about the following:

Why are none of the parties willing to provide
transparency in their funding? Does this mean they are all captives of their
major donors? When a hard decision needs to be taken, who do you think they
will they listen to – the people, or their moneybags?

Why are none of the parties proposing changes to
the electoral system that will make them more directly accountable to the
electorate? Do you think party leaders will willingly give up their absolute
power over deployees and return some of that power to the people? and,

Why are none of the parties even thinking about proposing
changes to the Constitution to provide enforceable penalties for those
“Honourables” who are proven to be dishonourable, particularly those in breach
of their oath of office for example? Could it be that this is also too much
accountability for them, and they are content with meaningless apologies that
have no real consequences?

While policies may differ, fundamentally
there are no significant operational differences between the three main parties.
The ANC’s NEC, the DA’s Federal Executive, and the EFF’s Central Command Team
all maintain direct control over their cadres. Even a DA Executive Mayor in a
local council cannot change members of their own Executive Committee without
first asking permission from Cape Town.

Political behaviour is guided by
ambition, and is influenced by whether they are already in power or are still striving
for power. So why are so many mainly White South Africans convinced that things
will change in 2019 when, they believe, the DA will take control of the country,
either outright or through coalitions? The circumstances that allowed the ANC
to run roughshod over the Constitution and capture the state will not have
changed. The way parties are funded and operate will not have changed, and the
system of unaccountability to the electorate will not have changed. So what
guarantees does the electorate have that a new governing party will not
eventually slide to the same depths of corruption? We certainly cannot just
cross our fingers and hope new leadership will be more ethical - after all, even
Robert Mugabe started off well. If we accept the term political ethics is an oxymoron, we should not only be looking to
change the governing party. We should also be looking to fix the underlying
weaknesses in our Constitution and electoral systems, which have allowed
unaccountable and therefore corruptible politicians to bring us to the brink of
disaster.

We desperately need a new social narrative,
one that promotes inclusivity, provides dignity in the form of
self-sufficiency, and pushes back against racially divisive and other populist
or “revolutionary” rhetoric. The problem is not race, it is poverty. Our politicians are simply playing the racial
blame game, because this is the easiest excuse for their own lack of vision beyond
accumulating personal power and wealth. If
our present political establishment is not capable of making necessary changes,
then who can we look to?

“If we are to achieve real
seismic change, it will require the creators of wealth to provide leadership
capable of achieving sustainable prosperity for the whole community and not
exclusively to the elite few. It will require tomorrow’s innovators in business
to accept – what for me is the blindingly obvious – that the greatest risk to
financial capital in the 21st Century will be the unyielding rise of global
inequality. In the absence of social
innovators and leaders capable of bursting the festering boil of unrelenting
inequality, we will continue to experience the emergence and growth of
nationalist movements and a return to protectionist markets, closed borders and
greater insecurity experienced by all.”

I think it is past time for us to
take a long hard look at ourselves, and decide whether we want to continue
feeding the fires of racial division sown by political rhetoric, or whether we
are prepared to make a concerted effort to bridge the poverty gap - if not for
ourselves, then at least for the sake of future generations. Must the whole country
burn before we realise that we are in this together, that we must find
solutions together, and that we can no longer afford to let politicians continue
stealing from us while feeding the flames of hatred?

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

After retiring early, I became involved with the local ratepayers association. This is where I gained first-hand experience of the damage that can be done by proportional representation politicians at local government level. I have become increasingly frustrated with the widening disconnection between party-dominated politicians and the people they (mis)represent.